Be My Hero(22)

"E . . . Eva?" I croaked, frowning as if I had no idea who he was  talking about. "She was the pregnant blonde, right? Your . . . your  girl's cousin or something like that."

Damn it, now I was being overly stupid. He was going to know I was  faking it. And yep, he narrowed his eyes, probably wondering what the  hell was up with me.

I shrugged. "She had Tinker Bell on her shirt. What else was I supposed to call her?"

"Nothing, I guess. I don't know." Mason waved a hand. "Ignore me. It was  just a shock to see that name on top of Skylar, that's all."

I crinkled my brow, totally confused. "Wait. Why? Who's Skylar?"

Mason let out a breath before saying, "No one. I mean, not yet. That's what Eva's going to name her daughter when she's born."

"What?" I plopped onto a stool and gaped slack-jawed at him. But, no.  No, no, no. This couldn't be happening. My vision went momentarily  black. I thought I was going to pass out, but all too soon, I blinked  Mason back into focus.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"I . . . " I patted my chest a few times. "Yeah," I finally choked out.  "I'm fine. Great. So . . . she's having a girl, huh? Eva?"

He nodded slowly, eyeing me funnily. "Yeah. Actually, she refused to  tell anyone the name she chose, but I caught her sewing it into  something last week and she swore me to secrecy."

"Swore you to secrecy?" I scowled, still pressing my hand to my chest,  trying to keep all the broken pieces inside from falling out, because  shit . . . Tinker Bell was really having a little girl named Skylar. And  I had nothing to do with it. "If she swore you to secrecy, then why the  fuck did you tell me?"

Mason pulled back in surprise at my barked question. "Uh . . . probably  because I didn't see how it'd matter if you knew. I doubt you'll ever  cross paths with her again."

God, did he have to rub that into my face quite so hard?

Clearing my throat, I glanced down at the shirt in my hand. "Yeah," I  said, my voice hoarse. "Good point." Waving my pukey clothes, I started  away, needing to escape. "I'm going to see if this'll rinse out."

I don't remember the walk down the hall to the bathrooms. I don't even  remember turning on the water in the sink. I just knew I suddenly looked  up from the shirt I was scrubbing under the freezing running faucet and  saw my own reflection in the mirror while I lost it.

"Fuck," I muttered and threw the slopping wet shirt at my image. "Fuck."

Backing up until my spine hit the wall, I gripped my pounding temples  and slid down until I was sitting on the floor, holding my head in my  hands and resting my elbows on my knees as I tried not to  hyperventilate.

How could this be happening to me? Julian, Tinker Bell, and now Skylar  all ended up being real people and none of them were fucking mine. Not  my woman, not my children, not my anything.

They were supposed to be mine, damn it. My family. My happily ever after. Jesus . . .

Madam LeFrey hadn't been lying when she'd said she'd given me my hope  back. For ten years, I'd blindly yearned for all these things, things I  wasn't even sure I wanted. A wife? Children? That wasn't really my  style, but I'd still craved them with every breath I had because I'd  craved the way I'd felt in those glimpses. I craved the rush of love,  the pride of accomplishment, the tenderness of being adored by others,  of finally having somewhere and someone to belong to. And now . . . now  there was nothing. No love, no happiness, no satisfaction.

My hands began to shake and I squeezed my eyes closed. I had gotten by  for a full decade, banking on the mere hope that maybe those stupid  glimpses might come true. I'd kept my nose clean, which was no small  feat where I came from. It took a goddamn lot of effort to be good when  you lived where I'd lived, where everyone around you cheated and stole  to get ahead. It would've been so easy to follow that path. But I wanted  to be a good person, a person who would eventually deserve my Tinker  Bell.

Except there was no way in hell I'd ever be near good enough for that  rich, pampered girl I'd seen on Facebook. Not that it mattered. She  already had someone else. And the fucking prick had put a baby in her;  he'd put Skylar in her.

My Skylar.

Throat closing over, I lifted my face to bump the back of my head  against the wall. After concentrating on pushing air through my lungs,  which beat the nausea away, I crawled back to my feet and fished my wet  shirt out of the sink, soaking my hair when I slopped it on.

I had a shift to begin and an auction to win. My happily fucking ever  after certainly wasn't going to come to me, so I guess I'd have to keep  working my ass off to make up one of my own.         

     



 





Chapter 8


EVA


"Okay, so I know I should totally be working on my final World  Masterpieces essay tonight, but ugh, I'm too brain-dead." Reese plopped  onto the couch beside me. "Let's watch a movie instead."

Leaning across me where I was working on my newest craft project to make  a diaper holder to hang from my crib, she snagged the remote. "So  what're you in the mood for? Jake Gyllenhaal, Channing Tatum, or Zac  Efron? I'm voting for Zac since he looks the most like Mason."

Wrinkling my nose, I paused on the chunk of fabric I was hacking away at  with a pair of scissors. "Mason looks nothing like Zac."

"Excuse me? They're both hot. That's close enough." Settling herself  down, Reese tossed her legs over the armrest and used what little space  was left of my lap as a pillow. I totally envied her for being so  flexible. Someday, I'd be able to move like that again too . . . as soon  as I got this extra thirty pounds off my waistline.

"They still look nothing alike." I went back to chopping, giving the fabric a ragged, fringed look.

"Fine. Then which actor do you think Mason most resembles?"

Ugh. I didn't care who Mason looked like. Ever since she'd gotten  engaged¸ Reese had been even more annoyingly in love with him than  usual. It was beginning to drive me batty.

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe a young Tom Welling, Tyler Hoechlin, or ooh . . . Danny off Baby Daddy."

"God, yes. Danny is hot. Mason could definitely be a Danny."

"I wonder what his real name is," I pondered aloud. "Danny, I mean."  Poor guy probably got tired of people calling him Danny when he was  actually someone else.

"Who cares," Reese announced. "He's hot, that's all I know. Though he seriously needs more shirtless scenes on the show."

Finished with my cutting task, I set the cloth and scissors in the bag  beside me and snorted. "He's shirtless in, like, every episode."

"I know." Reese aimed the remote at the television and started flipping through channels. "It's totally not shirtless enough."

With a laugh, I put my project on hold for a while so I could enjoy this  quality time with my bestie. Lifting a chunk of her dark hair and  beginning to braid it, I realized that soon we wouldn't have these  moments together anymore. She'd be married to Mason, and I'd have  Skylar. We were headed in entirely different directions. Better, but  different directions. All the same, I'd miss the hell out of her.

"Hey, what about this one?" Having found a movie on Amazon Prime, Reese  waved her remote at the television screen to gain my attention.

I lifted my face only to frown. "That doesn't have Jake, Channing, or Zac in it."

"But it's got Chris Hemsworth. So . . . same thing. We're watching it."

"Okay, Sweet Pea," I agreed, using the name Mason called her. "Whatever my adorable, precious bride-to-be wants."

But as soon as she pressed play, her cell phone rang.

Reese leapt off me with the agility only a non-pregnant girl could  accomplish and jogged into the kitchen for her phone. "It's Mason," she  called, only to answer with a low, seductive, "Hey, most handsome man in  the world. How're you doing?"

After listening for a moment, she paused and sent me a significant  glance. "Oh, he does, does he?" An ornery grin spread across her face.  "Well, sure. Eva and I would just love to deliver Pick a new shirt."

At that name, I sat up straighter, paying rapt attention as my blood raced with interest.

Reese met my gaze, and arched an eyebrow as she kept talking into the  phone. "'Kay. Sure. Love you too. Bye." When she disconnected, her smile  was a little too smug. "Well, well, well."

"What?" I demanded, needing to learn whatever little scrap of  information I could about Mason's coworker. "Why are we delivering Pick a  new shirt?"

"I knew it!" She snapped her finger and pointed at me, crowing, "I just  knew it. You're totally into him, aren't you? Aren't you? Yes, you are!"

My face flushed as I ground my teeth. "Give me a break," I muttered.  "I'm seven and half months pregnant. The last thing I want is any kind  of involvement with some guy."

Except maybe that guy. Ugh, why couldn't I get him off my mind? We'd had one brief encounter weeks ago, and that was it.